Why it works: Almond and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,514 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓
Almond Pudding, Baked
Ingredients
Directions
The book gives no oven temperature. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.
Prepare
Preheat the oven to 300°F (150°C).
Butter a pie dish and line the bottom with thin, buttered slices of the roll.
Mix the ground almonds, lemon rind, and cinnamon together and place in the pie dish.
Cover with more thin slices of the roll, then add the remaining almond mixture, and cover again with slices of roll.
Make the custard
Boil the milk and stir in the sugar.
Beat the eggs well, then pour the hot milk onto them, stirring constantly.
Gradually add the milk mixture to the pie dish in tablespoonfuls to avoid floating the slices of roll.
Bake
Cover the pudding and let it stand for ½ hour, then bake gently for about 1 hour.
Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.
Explore the science
The flavor team
The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.
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Almond + cinnamontop 1% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together3,514 recipes
Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
-
Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together27,232 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
-
Lemon + cinnamontop 7% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together7,950 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
-
Butter + milktop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
-
Milk + cinnamontop 10% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together12,655 recipes
Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Eggs
- Set the custard when heated, giving the pudding its body.
- Milk
- Forms the liquid custard that soaks the bread and sets during baking.
- Roll
- Absorbs the custard and forms the soft, layered base of the pudding.
- Ground almonds
- Add richness and a nutty flavour to the layers.
- Castor sugar
- Sweetens the milk and custard.
The step that matters
Pour the hot milk onto the eggs slowly while stirring. Adding hot milk to eggs all at once can scramble them. Pouring gradually while stirring constantly tempers the eggs so the custard stays smooth and sets evenly.
Swap the lemon
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (bread, almond, butter, sugar, milk, egg, cinnamon):
- Vanillafits better
- Figfits better
- Raisinfits better
- Lemonthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against bread, almond, butter, sugar, milk, egg, cinnamon. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.
“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.
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